Path soups up photo features with iPhone app update

Path, the mobile app for cataloging your daily activities and sharing them with a relatively small circle of contacts, has updated its app for the iPhone with the debut Wednesday of version 2.0.5.

The key new part of the update is the addition of a new effect called “Depth” that brings what’s known as tilt-shift capabilities to Path’s photo taking feature. Tilt-shift photography lets you adjust the depth of field to take photos in which certain items are in focus and others are out of focus. The proliferation of affordable, high quality digital cameras has made tilt-shift photography increasingly accessible and popular with mainstream shutterbugs, so it’s a nice addition to the Path app, which has had a big photo-sharing component since its inception.

An example of tilt shift photography effects.

It bears mention that there are a number of dedicated tilt-shift apps for iOS devices already on the market, and Instagram also added the capability to the 2.0 version of its app that launched back in September. More than anything, Path’s latest update shows that its team is working hard to keep its service fresh and relevant in an ever-growing world of apps that compete for users’ time and attention. Adding useful new features in an incremental way is a good way to do that.

Also in the iPhone app update, Path added the capability to tap, pinch, rotate, and zoom photos and videos while viewing them at full screen. Path’s Android app has not been updated in a similar way, which may be because there is so much discrepancy between the camera capabilities on devices that run the Android operating system.